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Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoPABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS | ASSOCIATED PRESSPresident Barack Obama heads for the stage set up amid the giant machinery at the Port of New Orleans to push again for Congress to increase infrastructure spending.

NEW ORLEANS — Dwarfed by towering cranes and cargo containers, President Barack Obama came to a
port in conservative-leaning Louisiana yesterday to nudge both parties to stop throwing up
roadblocks to jobs and economic progress.

At the Port of New Orleans, Obama made his case that the nation can reverse the decay of the
American Dream by embracing ideas that have bipartisan support, such as technology, roads and
schools — and some that do not, such as his health-care law.

The alternative, Obama said, is to fall farther and farther behind competitors such as Europe
and China.

“The first thing we should do is stop doing things that undermine our businesses and our
economy,” Obama said. “It’s like the gears of our economy, every time they are just about to take
off, somebody taps the brakes and says, ‘Not so fast.’ ”

Gumming up the gears most recently, Obama said, was a partial government shutdown last month
that he said had without question hurt the nation’s jobs market. Still, as Obama was leaving
Washington yesterday morning, the government released surprisingly strong hiring numbers for
October, calling into question how negative an effect the shutdown really had.

“We should be building, not tearing things down,” Obama said, with the dim roar of machinery in
the distance.

Obama wants Congress to include spending for roads, bridges, airports and ports in a budget
being negotiated. Such projects usually have bipartisan support, but talks have stumbled over how
to pay for them.

Indeed, Obama throughout his presidency has pressed for more infrastructure spending during
numerous other visits to ports just like this one, hoping to expand trade in service of his elusive
goal of doubling U.S. exports by 2015.

His proposals have gained little traction in Congress, and the president offered no new
suggestions yesterday for breaking the impasse.

Obama’s visit brought him to a Democratic-friendly enclave in a state that generally has been
hostile to his approach to governing.

Arriving in New Orleans, Obama was all smiles on the tarmac as he greeted Republican Gov. Bobby
Jindal. But later, with Jindal in the audience, Obama chided state Republican leaders who decided
not to take advantage of a provision in his health-care law to expand Medicaid to cover more of the
working poor. He said such expansion would benefit 265,000 people in Louisiana.

“So we want to work with everybody — mayor, governor, insurance — whoever it is that wants to
work with us here in Louisiana,” he said. Even those who don’t support the overall law should be
able to embrace the Medicaid expansion to help the uninsured, he added.

Don’t count on it, Jindal quickly rebutted. The governor said Louisiana had rejected the
expansion because it would cost taxpayers up to

$1.7 billion over a decade.

“We will not allow President Obama to bully Louisiana into accepting an expansion of Obamacare,”
he said.

A day after Obama apologized to Americans who are losing health-insurance plans despite his
promise they could keep them, the president tried his hand at humor as he invoked another aspect of
the health-care law’s wobbly launch: the error-prone HealthCare.gov website.

“I wanted to go in and fix it myself, but I don’t write code,” he said to scattered
laughter.

After his speech, Obama was flying to the Miami area to raise money for Senate Democrats and for
the Democratic National Committee at a trio of high-dollar fundraisers. He planned to stay
overnight in Florida.